On this day, Jan. 16, in 1936, a District of Columbia-born serial killer who ate children was executed in New York.

Albert Fish was one of America’s most notorious and disturbed killers, and authorities believed he killed as many as 10 children and then ate their remains. He became known as the “Werewolf of Wysteria” because his lust for blood seemed to come out during a full moon.

Albert Fish

Fish was born in 1870 in D.C., where he grew up in an orphanage and was frequently whipped. He discovered that he enjoyed the pain. He became fascinated by sadomasochism before eventually moving to New York as a young man.

Over 30 years, Fish tortured, mutilated and murdered young children with what he called his “Implements of Hell,” a butcher knife, meat cleaver and small hand saw. Some of the children he ate.

In 1928, Fish strangled 10-year-old Grace Budd and cannibalized her corpse. Six years later, he wrote Budd’s mother describing the killing in detail.

“Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her,” and confessed “I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it.”

Investigators traced the letter to Fish, who confessed to killing three children who could be traced. Fish claimed to have killed as many as 100 children.

Fish went to the electric chair with great anticipation, telling guards, “It will be the supreme thrill, the only one I haven’t tried.”